Trials of the Zodiac Braves

Hello FFTCG Community, this is Jared Scott and I'd like to welcome you to the first part of our series about the All-Star Draft.  Although this format hasn't had much in the way of official events in North America, there have been tournaments in Japan that used it going back to Opus V when the All-Star Draft was first unveiled.  The All-Star Draft has become a very popular side event in our local circuit tournaments for several months now and it will be making it's first official, Square Enix-supported appearance in North America as part of the Reunion Petit Cup in January! For this series, in Part 1 we'll be looking at what the All-Star Draft is, and what makes it a fun alternative to other formats.  Part 2 will dive into the choices Square Enix made when making their first card pool for the format back in Opus V.  Lastly, Part 3 will look at  how they chose to alter the card pool when implementing Opus VI, as well as how we used the information from thei...

An evil falls and a legend rises. However, not every hero is remembered. Come and hear an untold tale of a Zodiac Brave. Hello!  Welcome to our first piece in a series we like to call, " Entering the Field ."  In this series of articles we will be shining the spotlight on the very special players in the community.  For this article, we will be featuring Clarmelia Paunil, known for her skill with Mono Lightning and her love for the Fire element. She is also a homegrown product of the NorCal community and has one of the greatest stories of improvement in FFTCG. Let’s get started! Introduce yourself; tell me about your favorite Final Fantasy title and characters, and how you got started with the FFTCG. I'm Clarmelia. A friend of mine (Jeff L.) convinced me to play a few games with him a while back and promised I wouldn’t have to spend any money. I ended up getting way too into it, and it turns out, Jeff lied. I’ve now been playing for a full year. Facebook memories ...

Last month was the first tournament in Season 5 of our circuit, Trials of the Zodiac Braves. Many of our local players were attending the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest in Las Vegas that week, but 11 still came out to play in our first tournament of the Opus VII meta! If you missed it, you can check out our write-up of that event here . The Zodiac Braves' very own Brian Ng was victorious that day playing a Mono Earth deck. Brian is easily one of the top players in the area, coming in first at both the Season 1 and Season 2 championships as well as consistently topping and/or winning several of the tournaments along the way. For this first edition of Removed From Game , we sat down with Brian to get his thoughts on the deck, Opus VII, and the new meta! You can check out his winning deck list below while reading his thoughts on it. Hi Brian. Congratulations on winning the first Trial of Season 5! Let's talk a little bit about the deck you played and how the day we...

Another event has come and gone and Trial 2 is in the books. This second event was held at Anime Imports, and even though we were missing some of our regular players, we had a grand total of 21 participants--the most we have seen in a while, and we were thrilled! Very first time being hosted by Anime Imports in Pacifica, CA.  Thank you! A peek at Round 3 pairings We saw a wide variety of decks at this event: Mono Water, Mono Earth, Earth/Wind, Mono Ice, Fire, Ice/Fire, Earth/Fire...too many to name! With this many people, we were able to do 5 rounds of Swiss before cutting to top 8. Meanwhile, those who didn't make it were able to participate in an All-Star Draft Side Event, with a foil cube generously provided by our very own Jared. All-Star Draft in progress Note: If you flick the cards, Jared will flick you. Others who couldn't partake in the Draft event found a neat board game ( Splendor ) to demo and pass the time with instead. An...